2/100: Things I love-Below the Root
Apr. 29th, 2012 09:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alee_grrlBelow the Root is a seriously old school video game. It is not the first video game I remember playing, but it is one of my all time childhood favorites. It was released in 1984 by Windham Classics, a company that did several other very neat games based on books. The only other one I got to play was Alice in Wonderland, but that was another one of my childhood favorites.
Now, this was the early 80s, and the system we were using was a Commodore 64. The C64 was one of the first desktop computers put out on the market. It didn't come with a monitor, you could hook it up to a standard television set. Originally we could only play cartridge based games on it, but we got a floppy disk drive in '84 or '85, which opened up a whole new world of video gaming possibilities. The graphics were basic...really basic. Commodores ran an 8-bit graphics card. To compare, the original Nintendo system ran a 16-bit graphics card, and I think most modern systems run 64-bit. So basic, very pixelated graphics.
The stories told in these games though were often amazing, and could entertain for hours. You had to learn a bit of patience as it could take ten minutes to fully load the game. But once it was loaded, you could explore and have fun. Below the Root was a classic adventure game. The spiritual leader of the Green Sky community had gone missing and it was your job as a quester to find him and save him. You had your choice of character. Different characters had different positives and negatives. Some started out with higher spirit levels (and you used these to gain skills you needed to win the game), but they were of a lesser liked group in the game and were more prone to kidnapping and negative reactions from other characters. Though your character could, and would if you weren't careful, get kidnapped, it was a game that focused on non-violence. You would wake up in a shack and have to find your way out, but kidnapping or being denied rest or food by another character (you could often buy these items elsewhere or find a more sympathetic character who would give them to you). There is a knife that you can get in the game, but it should only be used to cut vines that block your way. If used against any person or animal you loose all of your spirit levels and cannot gain anymore, making it impossible to win the game.
Each character starts out in a different Grund, or village, high in the tree-tops. Shubas are a parachutte like device used for gliding through the tree tops. You do have to be wary of water and you cannot swim and will wake up back in your own house if you fall into water. Like other adventure games you explore the world around you, gathering and buying the things you need as you go. Many are sympathetic to the questers and will give food, tokens, shubas, or a place to rest (you need to rest periodically or you pass out and wake up back in your house, which might be a long ways from where you wanted to be). As you go you gain spirit levels and skills to go with those levels, including the ability to tell what animals and people are feeling, and the ability to get the limbs of the trees to grow out farther (very helpful in many parts of the game). I've never had a chance to read the children's book series that this game was based on, but the game itself was very rich. I eventually played the game so often that I go my "win" time down to less than an hour. I've played it via simulator a couple of times as an adult, and it still manages to keep me interested and entertained. I included a video of the game below (YouTube has so many neat things) so people can get an idea of what game play was like, and see just what I mean when I say basic graphics. It was still lovely, considering the limitations of an 8-bit system.
Now, this was the early 80s, and the system we were using was a Commodore 64. The C64 was one of the first desktop computers put out on the market. It didn't come with a monitor, you could hook it up to a standard television set. Originally we could only play cartridge based games on it, but we got a floppy disk drive in '84 or '85, which opened up a whole new world of video gaming possibilities. The graphics were basic...really basic. Commodores ran an 8-bit graphics card. To compare, the original Nintendo system ran a 16-bit graphics card, and I think most modern systems run 64-bit. So basic, very pixelated graphics.
The stories told in these games though were often amazing, and could entertain for hours. You had to learn a bit of patience as it could take ten minutes to fully load the game. But once it was loaded, you could explore and have fun. Below the Root was a classic adventure game. The spiritual leader of the Green Sky community had gone missing and it was your job as a quester to find him and save him. You had your choice of character. Different characters had different positives and negatives. Some started out with higher spirit levels (and you used these to gain skills you needed to win the game), but they were of a lesser liked group in the game and were more prone to kidnapping and negative reactions from other characters. Though your character could, and would if you weren't careful, get kidnapped, it was a game that focused on non-violence. You would wake up in a shack and have to find your way out, but kidnapping or being denied rest or food by another character (you could often buy these items elsewhere or find a more sympathetic character who would give them to you). There is a knife that you can get in the game, but it should only be used to cut vines that block your way. If used against any person or animal you loose all of your spirit levels and cannot gain anymore, making it impossible to win the game.
Each character starts out in a different Grund, or village, high in the tree-tops. Shubas are a parachutte like device used for gliding through the tree tops. You do have to be wary of water and you cannot swim and will wake up back in your own house if you fall into water. Like other adventure games you explore the world around you, gathering and buying the things you need as you go. Many are sympathetic to the questers and will give food, tokens, shubas, or a place to rest (you need to rest periodically or you pass out and wake up back in your house, which might be a long ways from where you wanted to be). As you go you gain spirit levels and skills to go with those levels, including the ability to tell what animals and people are feeling, and the ability to get the limbs of the trees to grow out farther (very helpful in many parts of the game). I've never had a chance to read the children's book series that this game was based on, but the game itself was very rich. I eventually played the game so often that I go my "win" time down to less than an hour. I've played it via simulator a couple of times as an adult, and it still manages to keep me interested and entertained. I included a video of the game below (YouTube has so many neat things) so people can get an idea of what game play was like, and see just what I mean when I say basic graphics. It was still lovely, considering the limitations of an 8-bit system.
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